CB/HAM 2 meter band Ham radio

Wondering if anyone here on E/O uses a 2 meter band radio in their vehicle while expediting. I'm interested in corresponding to gain some knowledge in its usefulness on the road or if its just an expensive toy ? Thanks.

Wondering if anyone here on E/O uses a 2 meter band radio in their vehicle while expediting. I'm interested in corresponding to gain some knowledge in its usefulness on the road or if its just an expensive toy ? Thanks.

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Leo (LDB) is our resident ham guru. He'll probably jump in

He did have one in his D truck, not sure if he's gotten around to putting one in the van.

I have a Kenwood TR-9000 and a magnet mount I use every once in a while and it seems that outside of using it to talk to people on the way down to Indiana, I pretty much leave on the 146.52 or if I am sitting 142.2 on sb. I've done well on 2m SSB in the past, so if you have a multimode radio, take advantage of it.

Now past year I had my TR4 HF rig in the truck for fun and used it on 20m with a shunt feed 15 foot whip and an ant tuner. I would use it for about an hour at a time because it just drain my batteries.

I'm not into everything but been doing the ham thing for a while. There are others here who may be a bit more active than I am.

Oh by the way, if you want to do something different, check out websdr.org and listen in. If pa3fwm's site is up and running, it is based in Europe and you can hear lw/mw/sw broadcasts among ham activity.

I have a Kenwood TR-9000 and a magnet mount I use every once in a while and it seems that outside of using it to talk to people on the way down to Indiana, I pretty much leave on the 146.52 or if I am sitting 142.2 on sb. I've done well on 2m SSB in the past, so if you have a multimode radio, take advantage of it.

Now past year I had my TR4 HF rig in the truck for fun and used it on 20m with a shunt feed 15 foot whip and an ant tuner. I would use it for about an hour at a time because it just drain my batteries.

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I know nothing about those frequencies that you are mentioning. I was wondering if you can gleen useful information from ham radio while on the road. I know the CB is useless most of the time with childish antics.

CM, I know Leo has told me he does get into some conversations while driving, but the problem is, most trucks around you are not going to have it... so "useful" information is going to be scarce. I still like the CB, been playin it for 30 years or so ... but if the CB rambos are on I just turn it down til I'm outta range.

I have an HT with me all of the time that will do 2 meter and 440. I don't use it while I'm driving much but will use it during layovers. Eventually I'm going to get a mobile unit installed in the van and if I live long enough maybe even an HF. I don't know that you'd find 2m all that useful on the road in the way you would a cb but they are fun and you don't get all the garbage on them you get on cb.

Anyone clue me in on how useful a scanner might be in picking up useful information ? Local traffic, weather, anything useful to a driver ?

jimmy

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For those things the local AM newstalk station is your best bet along with a traffic enabled GPS for those places you aren't familiar with. A CB radio will sometimes help when you can find the 1 in 8342 CB users with both a brain and a decent vocabulary. A scanner could help if you happen to hit the right broadcast on the right frequency at the right time and know the area to know where they are talking about.

There really isn't one thing that can be depended on because the info is so scattered and many will point to the radio for that info but many of those 'home grown' traffic reports on the radido are as useful as the ones you get on the cb - Detroit area reports will only focus on a few of the roads, some of info is common occurrences, like slow traffic while they will ignore accidents and such on roads that are not important to the producers.

The GPS driven scanner is a great idea but there are a few issues with it, one is an awful lot of them police are going onto interagency trunked systems and sometimes out of reach of those scanners *even if there is a claim they work with X or Y trunking system. Oh did I mention that getting caught with a scanner is a big deal in some places?

I would like to install my Yeasu 2800m in my van, but trying to figure where to pwr it and my CB without drilling holes because it's not my van. Thought about running 10/8 gauge thru the doghouse seal, but will wait for spring!

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